Any expectations that the College Photographer of the Year Multimedia projects would maybe be a shade lower in quality than the real deal POYI projects was quickly thrown to the wayside once I started to watch a few of them.

One in particular that I liked was done about Urban Horsemen in Norther Philadelphia. The perfectly timed mixture of still photo images, video interviews and shots, and background audio came together to create a very powerful nine and a half minute video about a side of Philadelphia that is not often, if ever, seen by the wider world.

It initially threw me off that there are functioning stables of horses in any urban environment, least of all in a city as large as Philly. But that’s what these projects were so good at. Delving into something not often seen, and then not just saying, ‘Oh look, this is here’, but actually finding a really interesting angle to cover the story.

The only thing I found problematic, minor though it may be, is that it isn’t mentioned in the video where this is taking place until a little over halfway through the video. Although there could be a million different reasons for that.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching the CPOY projects, and it was awesome to see yet again what I might accomplish with what I am learning in class.